The Sins of a Solar Empire
by Chaot1kShadow5
Summary: A once-proud, now broken race is fleeing from an unknown enemy; An exiled people, driven by hate, seek revenge for an injustice committed so long ago; and a fledgling race, only just crawling outward, is now being relentlessly swatted aside. This is the story of a bitter conflict throughout the stars, told from the positions of the players with all the cards. Rated T to be safe.
1. -Prologue-

**The Sins of a Solar Empire – Prologue**

**Author's**** Note:** Hello! Welcome to my first attempt at a fanfiction! To be honest I've had the idea for this brewing around in my head for a while now, ever since I imagined a story line based on the intro scenes of the Sins of a Solar Empire games (go check them out, they're amazing), but I've only just been motivated into writing it down. So without further ado, I present to you: "The Sins of a Solar Empire"!

**Disclaimer:** As you may have guessed, I don't own Sins of a Solar Empire (as much as I want to :( ); that honor goes to Ironclad Games. All original characters are mine, though.

* * *

_We were such fools._

_It was all very sudden. At the time our glorious empire was thriving as it always had been. The Dark Fleet brought more worlds into our fold, rewarding us with slaves, resources, and room for our people. Our mastery of phase space, which allowed for extremely rapid faster-than-light travel, among other things, was only improving with time. Nanites continued to astonish us with the rate with which colonies could be erected on desolate worlds, as well as the efficiency with which they rooted out and purged disease._

_But then, in but a single moment, everything was lost._

_It started when our central phase communications hub reported an anomaly. According to the overseer involved, the head of the primary phase space research facility of Tul'var, an Inner Empire world, had failed to submit its daily report. Dismissing it as a simple rebellion of the indigenous population on the world, we sent a small detachment of the Dark Fleet to crush the usurpers, and reclaim the facility._

_Except we never heard from the detachment afterwards. With commendable initiative, the head overseer of the hub reported to the Internal Council, informed them of the current situation, and was discussing further details regarding the anomaly and the disappearance of the detachment when they were called in to investigate another anomaly – three, in fact._

_Thrice again, worlds in the Inner Empire had fallen silent, without warning. A short search into the empire's records showed that they were the worlds directly connected via phase lane to Tul'var, and that they had all ceased communications at roughly the same time._

_Growing concerned, the head overseer contacted the Council directly, and was shocked to learn that they had already heard of the communications failure, and were already amassing the local defense fleet. Ordered to discuss the likely cause of the communications failures with Internal Intelligence, the main espionage branch of the empire, and come up with a solution, the situation was left otherwise unchecked until a conclusion was finally reached and the overseer made to report to the Internal Council._

_Except in the short amount of time it had taken to prepare a solution, several more adjacent inner worlds had fallen silent – including our ancient home-world, Vadrinmar._

_At that point we were in a state of near-panic. Long ago abandoning the notion that a simple rebellion was the cause for this decay, the entire Dark Armada was amassed and sent to the Inner Empire in a desperate attempt to stop the expansion of what came to be known as the Unknown Enemy._

_Much later, at the border world of Tenzeksa, an unmistakably military vessel, quite literally falling apart, was identified emerging from phase space. After the vassal of the colony attempted and failed to make communications with the derelict, a rescue ship was dispatched with a fabricator to salvage the remains. Given the not-too-long-ago announcement that the Dark Armada was deployed to secure the Inner Empire, the crews were left assuming the worst. After all, what would a Dark Armada vessel be doing so far from its objective, so badly damaged, and with its crew apparently so alarmed as to flee from their mission?_

_It was so much worse than any of us had realized._

_Immediately upon entering the vessel, the rescue team was bombarded by the desperate pleas of the surviving Vasari crewmen, who had visibly been reduced to complete madness. Scouring the vessel swiftly proved to be a waste of time, as all other surviving crew on board had been left in the same state. Alarmed by the implications regarding such an enemy, the vassal convened with the other vassals of nearby star systems and, in an unheard-of display of autonomy, did what any sensible being would do, Vasari or not._

_We packed up, rendezvoused at the nearest phase lane, and fled for our lives._

_This process continued for the next 10,000 years. Every so often, the fleeing Vasari populace, referring to themselves now as the Exodus Fleet, would stop in a region of space for some important reason – restocking of resources, boosting the population, kidnapping slave laborers – deploy a beacon, and keep going._

_The beacons served a purpose, and one that had instilled us to maintain our philosophy; Evacuate, Siphon, and Run. Emitting a signal through phase space, they warned any sentient races in the sectors of space we traveled through of the threat chasing after us, and our communications overseers monitored the progress of the Unknown Enemy by keeping notice of the beacons deployed by the Fleet – as well as tracking which ones fell silent, chalked up to the seemingly-impregnable advance of the Unknown Enemy, by this point referred to as "The Pursuer"._

_Never resting, we kept running, never staying for too long in a sector of space before moving on, always monitoring The Pursuer's advance. Given how events have turned since then, this is unlikely to change; the best case scenario now is that this equilibrium will remain constant until the end of time. That being said, no one seems willing to consider the possibility of being caught up to by The Pursuer, shuddering to think of what fate would await us._

_All we can do now is run – Evacuate, Siphon, and Run. Such is the consequence of our folly, our ridiculous degree of standing to which we held ourselves._

_Such is the punishment for the sin of a solar empire._


	2. -Chapter 1: First Contact-

**The Sins of a Solar Empire – First Contact**

_**Author's Note:**__ Hey there, and welcome back! Something I forgot to mention last time is that I will try to update as frequently as I can, but between school and procrastination I can't promise a reliable schedule. Another thing is that my plot for this fanfic was also influenced by a soundtrack I made of my favourite songs from the soundtrack of Sins of a Solar Empire; for full effect, I'll be leaving you with the titles of each track so you can listen to it while you read. Enjoy!_

_**Track (Prologue): The Fallen Empire**_

_**Track (Chapter 1): Quiet 2**_

_**Disclaimer:**__ I WISH I owned Sins of a Solar Empire. The OCs present are mine, however._

* * *

_Korona Central Commerce Station  
Geostationary orbit over Gezobe  
Nostroma System, Trade Order Outer Rim_

As one would expect with such an important orbital structure, it was very, very noisy. And cramped. Oh, and don't forget smelly, the smells were _everywhere_.

Angela Ballard didn't mind though; it's not like she was going to be swimming through this veritable horde of people, moving like a river through the light-filled canyon that was the Main Shopping District, much longer. Quickly running through her favourite route through the station once again, she turned around long enough to apologise to the man she had just bumped into, dark black hair whipping out, and took off into a simpler, dimly-lit rapid-transit corridor, intended for cargo haulers but used by just about everyone.

Standing at about 1.7 metres (give or take a couple centimetres), Angela was of African descent and wasn't the most plain-looking woman to exist, yet she wasn't exceptional either – a balance she found incredibly convenient. She waved in a friendly manner at a random merchant, having to consciously resist the urge to laugh as the person she had waved to gave her a hesitant look before continuing onwards, letting her hand fall to her average-sized-hips. While she wasn't particularly large, her apple-shaped body still carried a healthy look to it, and she made sure people realised she was proud of it.

Turning left into an inconspicuous service tunnel, Angela stopped for a moment to look out the window and stare at what made this route her favourite: the endless expanse of space, stars dotting the black canvas of the universe, with the graceful curve of Gezobe's surface providing some foreground contrast laid just behind the glass. The first thing to know about Angela (if you could get past her almost-infuriatingly-gregarious front) was that she loved- no, "loved" would be a gross understatement; Angela was head-over-heels obsessed with space and astronomy, which was a major influence in her decision to be a traffic operator on Korona Station – after all, when someone like Angela adored space so much, how could they resist the opportunity to live up there? The good pay was a plus too, but it was mostly the promise of being able to live amongst the stars that got her interested.

She stared longingly at the reinforced, metre-thick glass before sighing longingly and thinking _"Look, you really need to get to the communications-centre because your break is going to be over in a few minutes and oh GOD you're going to be LATE HURRY UP!"_ Breaking into a mad sprint, she rushed out of the service tunnel and into another rapid-transit corridor, shouting unintelligible apologies to everyone she knocked into, feet clanging in a rising crescendo against the metal floor. A few minutes and an elevator ride later, she arrived panting at the rather-imposing-door to the communications centre, and frantically entered the access code before picking up speed again-

-only to have to stop immediately afterwards to avoid crashing into her co-commander, who was about to leave.

"Oh, Angela! I was just about to go looking for you!" Only just shorter than Angela at 1.69 metres, Cameron Xander stared at Angela with his hazel eyes in a concerned manner, noticing just how exhausted she looked. "…are you okay? You don't look too good".

Angela, still panting, mustered what energy she hadn't used getting here in a valiant attempt to reassure him. "Oh, I….I'm fine, *pant* chie…chief…*pant*…" In her panic she had forgotten that, even if she had been late, Cameron could have easily taken over while she was gone and nothing would have come of it; such was the policy known as the Dichotomous Rule, which involved having two people possessing the same rank being in command of any group - be it blue-collar or white-collar - so that in the event of either commanding officer being unable to go to work that day, the command structure wouldn't be incomplete and plunge into chaos.

Gently pushing Cameron to the side, and ignoring the stares of the more inquisitive crew members, she made her way over to the left, star-side of the communications centre where her command terminal resided. Finally relaxing, she looked around the large, hemispherical room that she adored as much as the route she had just taken.

The Communications Centre of Korona Station, if not for all the blocky, grey terminals dotting the walkways and huge blue screens hanging from the centre of the room's 12m high ceiling, would have looked like an observatory; a ring of glass panels lined the walls, intercepted by the entrance, offering a breathtaking view of Gezobe's extreme-upper atmosphere and the Class G star it orbited, Nostroma, and allowing for the scrutiny of the various trade and passenger ships docking, taking off, and passing by. Angela offered a nod and a friendly smile to a crewman walking by, taking her position at her terminal overlooking the circular amphitheatre where the traffic controllers worked. Over on the opposite end of the room was Cameron at his terminal, who shot Angela a quick smile before returning to his work.

"_Oh right, work. Not on break anymore, focus."_ Chiding herself, Angela powered up her terminal, orange screen lighting up, logged on, and started looking through the list of things she had to do. It was going to be a long day, it seemed, as the list was basically void of any issues to be addressed – Cameron must have taken all the work again in an attempt to get a promotion. _"I mean, he's a sorta decent guy"_, Angela thought, _"but he works way too hard. I mean, he knows the higher-ups don't just throw out promotions like that, right?"_

Sighing in exasperation and boredom, she was snapped out of her introspective stupor when she noticed one of the crewmen…. Alex, was it?... trying to get her attention. _"Poor girl must have gotten a bad terminal"_ Angela thought in sympathy as she made her way over, wondering what the bitch known as fate had handed out to the new recruit.

"What's up? Is it a glitch?" Angela started.

"Morning, Ma'am, and no… well, I don't think so…" Alex muttered, bringing up the timetable of arrivals and departures for the Nostroma system. "It's just… the system told me that there was a large convoy coming in from phase space, and that it was going to exit near Gezobe, but…" Gesturing wordlessly, Angela scanned the timetable at Alex's prompting and found the problem: no convoy, commercial or otherwise, was scheduled to arrive at this time. Given the grand insanity that was the Trade Order bureaucracy, it was no idle issue; every ship, regardless of purpose for travelling, had to notify the authorities of any world when they were going to arrive in-system. Angela leant back, realising it wasn't going to be a boring day after all. "Ok then, well I'd say we should contact Gezo-"

"Whoa, whoa, _whoa!"_ Alex interrupted, suddenly typing madly at her terminal. "Ma'am, this is going to sound weird as hell, but the convoy's just picked up speed, and a hell of a lot of it too".

"Picked up _speed?_ In _**phase-space?**_" Angela couldn't believe it; from what little she remembered of phase engines from high school, ships available for civilian use going through phase-space could only travel at a fixed rate, never being able to accelerate nor decelerate. For a ship of any kind to be able to change speed in this case either had to be military, or-

"Ah, shit". Pirates; after the dissolution of the Trade Order's military, pirate attacks struck everywhere trying to get at the precious phase-engines used by the decommissioned warships, as they were the only ones designed to change a ships velocity in-transit. "Alex, tell the planetary forces, we need them mobilised an-"

Alex turned around, wearing a face of utter bewilderment. "No, ma'am, they're going way too fast. I mean, they're going to be here _any moment now_ too fast". She paused to catch her breath. "Ma'am, forgive me for sounding like an idiot, but… I don't think these ships are Human".

"That's not- that's ridiculous!" And yet Angela knew better; there was at least one alien race that the Trade Order had encountered centuries ago, their name long forgotten, that had been removed from their desert home world and driven out of Trade Order space after they had learnt that this race had been regularly committing horrific atrocities, acts that this race considered normal. That these incoming ships may not have been Human was hardly surprising, now that she thought about it.

But it gave way to an even more unsettling question that Angela couldn't answer: if they're coming back, are they here for revenge?

Before Angela could ponder the thought further, several phase-transit warnings sounded across the station, telling everyone inside the communications centre that the ships were going to be arriving very close to the station. Not a moment later, flashes of golden-yellow light blinked into existence several hundred kilometres from the station, bizarre looking silhouettes standing out against Nostroma and casting shadows across the station. By that point everyone in the room was up against the windows, trying to get a look at what had just appeared above Gezobe, Angela and Cameron included.

Cameron, ever the calm-and-collected leader in a crisis, turned to Angela sharply. "What the fuck is going on!?"

Angela's response was just as confused, with a dash of annoyance. "How the hell should I know? It's not every day we get freakish-looking ships popping up out of nowhere after _speeding up in phase-space!_"

A nearby crewman, eavesdropping on their conversation, rounded on Angela, face having turned the palest white. "I'm sorry ma'am, but did you say what I think you bloody said?"

Someone else spoke up. "Wait, what? Those things can accelerate through phase-space? What the hell are those-"

"Jesus fucking _Christ_ man, WE'RE GONNA DIE!" Someone wailed, prompting the crew to voice their questions in a rush of panic. The sound was overwhelming and, frankly, pissing Angela off, but she was beaten to the punch when Cameron suddenly intervened:

"Everyone, SHUT UP!"

Silence filled the communications centre once more. The tension in the air was palpable as everyone waited as patiently as they could for their commanding officer to explain why they had to stay calm when what appeared to be invaders were descending upon both Gezobe and the station-that-they-had-to-get-right-the-hell-off-of.

Taking a calming breath, Cameron finally eased his subordinates' minds. "Look, in the _unlikely_ event that these guys are aliens, or pirates, or whatever-the-hell-they-are", pausing to throw a frustrated glance at the man who had announced their apparent demise, "the big-wigs on the surface will send up an envoy ship to talk to them."

He then turned to face Angela, which naturally led to everyone else turning to her. "And regardless, Chief Angela can send an SOS to all of our nearby neighbours in other systems. They can send help if things get pissy." Of course, what the SOS really meant was that it gave them time to prepare for any attacks – if the SOS had to be activated, then it was already too late for Gezobe.

Cameron looked to the window. "Look, there's the envoy right there. You see? Everything's gonna be fine."

True to his word, a Geneva-class Envoy ship, basically a grey, flying, cylinder-ended-rectangle with 4 engines at each corner of the rear of the ship, was slowly rising from Gezobe's surface, making its way over to the small fleet that was getting closer and closer. Indeed, now that they were closer and the situation seemed to have gotten a little better, Angela scrutinised the incoming ships and rapidly came to a conclusion:

Whatever the hell they were, they looked alien.

The leading ship looked sort-of like a flattened cuttlefish, all graceful curves ending with sharp points, with what appeared to be hangars running along the sides and underbelly of the ship. Above it and to the right seemed like a flying missile silo, not unlike the long-decommissioned Javelis missile boats, only this seemed more… menacing, with a pincer-like front and god-knows-how-many ridges and lights dotting its surface.

There were various other large ships that Angela noticed were all various shades of grey-purple and decorated with royal purple lights, including a giant metal egg, a bar surrounded by a circle, and what appeared to be a horizontal hourglass, but the carrier and missile silo kept being the focus of her attention; besides, there was a bunch of debris stopping her from seeing anything else.

"_Oh"_ Angela muttered to herself when she remembered that all orbital debris was either shipped off or destroyed. No, those were _even more ships_.

Suddenly, an old, rasping voice sounded over the speakers, one that carried decades of experience and authority. "Attention, unknown vessels. This is Tyler Jaeger of the Gezobe planetary commission of the Trade Order. You are not authorised to enter this airspace, and must either vacate immediately or face charges".

By this point the envoy had stopped completely, waiting a couple hundred kilometres from the still-approaching fleet, who had yet to respond.

Again, Tyler addressed the unknown fleet. "I repeat, unknown vessels. This is Tyler Jaeger of the Gezobe planetary commission of the Trade Order. You are not authorised to enter this airspace, and must either vacate immediately or face charges. Respond".

Again, that unnerving silence as the ships kept going, seemingly oblivious to the demands of the ambassador.

For the third time, Tyler tried to address the fleet. "Unknown vessels, this is your last warning. Vacate this system or you will be charged with trespassing in Trade Order-"

Without any prior warning, Tyler was cut off when something that sounded vaguely like a monstrous baby trying to talk came over the speakers. Angela had no idea what it was, but the guttural, almost hissing sounds seemed to be…

"_Coherent?!"_ Angela stood there, mouth hanging in shock, as the rest of the crew came to the realisation that something was talking to them at about the same time.

Was Alex right? Were these trespassers aliens never encountered before? Was this the second time they have made contact with a sentient race?

Tyler started speaking once more, but no-one was paying attention, still trying to wrap their heads around the notion that they were being met with an alien, sentient intelligence. Of course, it ultimately didn't matter what was being said, regardless of the now furious way the ambassador was demanding the aliens halted, because it seemed at that moment that whoever had just spoken to them had finally had enough, and a thin, sickly-yellow beam leapt from the bow of the carrier and destroyed the envoy ship.


End file.
